When to use this
A recurring digest to people who explicitly asked for it: product updates, industry notes, curated links. That "explicitly asked" is the entire foundation. A newsletter to a list that opted in performs; a newsletter to a list you assembled from signups, imports, and "they're customers anyway" decays into the spam folder over a few months, and takes your domain's reputation with it.
Design rules a newsletter should follow
Lead with your best item, headline and two-sentence summary, then link out. Don't paste the full article; the click is a positive engagement signal, and a wall of text buries your second story. Two or three items beats seven. Remind people why they're getting this ("you subscribed at...") because subscribers forget, and a confused subscriber reaches for the spam button, not the archive button.
And make the unsubscribe link honest: visible, one click, no login, no "are you sure" gauntlet. Every person who wanted to leave and couldn't becomes a complaint instead, and complaints cost you the readers who stayed. An easy exit is cheap insurance for the rest of your list.
The template
Copy-ready, table-based so it renders everywhere, inline styles only. Swap the {{placeholders}} for your values or your template engine's variables.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<body style="margin:0;padding:0;background:#f4f5f7;font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<table role="presentation" width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background:#f4f5f7;padding:24px 0;">
<tr><td align="center">
<table role="presentation" width="560" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"
style="background:#ffffff;border-radius:8px;padding:36px;">
<tr><td style="font-size:18px;font-weight:bold;color:#111;padding-bottom:4px;">
{{company_name}}
</td></tr>
<tr><td style="font-size:12px;color:#999;padding-bottom:22px;">
{{newsletter_name}} · {{issue_date}}
</td></tr>
<tr><td style="font-size:20px;font-weight:bold;color:#111;padding-bottom:8px;">
{{lead_headline}}
</td></tr>
<tr><td style="font-size:14px;color:#444;line-height:1.65;padding-bottom:14px;">
{{lead_summary}}
</td></tr>
<tr><td style="padding-bottom:26px;">
<a href="{{lead_url}}" style="font-size:14px;font-weight:bold;color:#1a56db;">
Read the full story →
</a>
</td></tr>
<tr><td style="border-top:1px solid #eee;padding-top:22px;font-size:16px;font-weight:bold;color:#111;padding-bottom:6px;">
{{story_2_headline}}
</td></tr>
<tr><td style="font-size:14px;color:#444;line-height:1.65;padding-bottom:10px;">
{{story_2_summary}}
</td></tr>
<tr><td style="padding-bottom:26px;">
<a href="{{story_2_url}}" style="font-size:14px;font-weight:bold;color:#1a56db;">
Read more →
</a>
</td></tr>
<tr><td style="border-top:1px solid #eee;padding-top:20px;font-size:12px;color:#888;line-height:1.7;">
You're getting this because you subscribed at {{signup_source}}.
<a href="{{unsubscribe_url}}" style="color:#888;">Unsubscribe</a> any time,
one click, no questions. · {{company_address}}
</td></tr>
</table>
</td></tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>Deliverability: the long game
Bulk senders to Gmail and Yahoo are now required to support one-click unsubscribe at the infrastructure level (the List-Unsubscribe header), keep complaint rates near zero, and authenticate fully. Those are mechanical requirements a proper sending platform handles for you; what it can't handle for you is cadence and consent. Send on the schedule you promised, to people who chose it, and prune subscribers who stop engaging before mailbox providers notice you're mailing the uninterested. That pruning is list hygiene, and for newsletters it's the difference between aging well and aging into the junk folder.
Keep newsletters on your promotional stream, away from receipts and password resets, so a rough issue never touches your transactional mail. Grow the list with double opt-in so every address on it is real and willing. And if opens have been sliding, check placement before blaming the content: the free deliverability check takes seconds.
Related
- Double Opt-In: how a healthy newsletter list gets built
- List Hygiene: the pruning that keeps issue #40 landing
- Welcome email template: the issue-zero that sets expectations
- Transactional vs Promotional: why newsletters get their own stream